St. Katharine Cree
St. Katharine’s was rebuilt in the early 17th century but incorporating a Tudor-period tower. It survived the Great Fire and the Second World War and is thus is an unusual hybrid between Gothic Perpendicular and Classical. The church remains loyal to King Charles I and Archbishop William Laud, both of whom were beheaded by opposing forces in the 1640s.
St. Katharine Cree stands on the corner of Leadenhall Street and Creechurch Lane. The original church on the site was built in around 1280 in what was then the grounds of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, an Augustinian Order founded by Henry I’s wife, Matilda of Scotland. The parishioners had until then worshipped in the priory church but their new church was created so that they did not disturb the priory’s canons. It is dedicated to St. Katharine who was tortured on a spiked wheel – a ‘Catharine wheel – before being beheaded. The church was originally known as St. Katharine de Christchurch, Christ Church being an alternative dedication of Holy Trinity, which was corrupted to ‘Cree’.
St. Katharine’s was originally part of the Priory of Holy Trinity, which was located inside of Ald Gate, the location seen here in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.
Holy Trinity rebuilt St. Katharine’s in 1504 but shortly after, in 1531, the priory was the first to be dissolved under Henry VIII in his dissolution of all monasteries and convents. The church was offered to the parishioners but they declined and it was demolished, except for the early-Tudor tower.
The main part of the church was rebuilt in the early 17th century, incorporating the older tower, and completed in 1631. St. Katharine’s survived the Great Fire and has become the only surviving example in London of a church built in the transitional period between the medieval Gothic and the new Classical. It has Corinthian columns supporting Renaissance arches and five Perpendicular-style windows on the south side. The ribbed Gothic-style ceiling contains bosses of City livery companies. There is a window from 1630 in the form of St. Katharine’s wheel. A sundial from 1706 is on the south wall. In 1776 a cupola was added to the tower.
St. Katharine’s was one of two churches in London consecrated by the controversial William Laud when he was Bishop of London (the other was St. Giles in the Fields). Evidence of ‘popish practices’ during the consecrations – the wearing of vestments, as well as his pompous manner – were later used as evidence against Laud (by then Archbishop of Canterbury), which eventually led to his execution on Tower Hill. There is still a Laud chapel within St. Katharine’s that includes his portrait. The chapel continues to be maintained by the Society of King Charles the Martyr, the monarch who was the sponsor of Laud, and who in 1649 was himself beheaded. There is a wooden figure of Charles in the church.
Having avoided the Great Fire, St. Katharine’s also escaped bombing in the Second World War. However, demolition was considered when in 1953 serious defects were found during repairs. Instead, funds were raised for restoration by Marshall Sisson, which was completed in 1962. At that time it became a Guild church with its parish amalgamated with that of St. Andrew Undershaft, and more recently with St. Helen’s Bishopsgate. In 1965 the old churchyard, behind the building and entered from Mitre Street, was laid out as a garden by descendants of James Fitch who in 1784 established a cheese shop nearby.
The church has a tomb of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (who gave his name to the nearby Throgmorton Street), ambassador to France and Scotland under Queen Elizabeth and father-in-law of Sir Walter Raleigh. The font includes the arms of Sir John Gayer, Lord Mayor in 1646, who bequeathed £200 to the church in gratitude for surviving a meeting with a lion while travelling in the Syrian desert. The ‘Lion Sermon’ continues to be preached each October.
Sources include:
- Stephen Miller ‘London’s City Churches’
- R.G. Ellen ‘A London Steeplechase’
- Tony Tucker ‘City of London Churches’
